my online journey

Why Every Finance Professional Needs a Degree in Big Data

The problem is that the amount of available data to analyze has exploded in the past five years. Until recently, there wasnt a need for Big Data specialists, because there simply wasnt the ability to organize data in a way that enabled effective decision making. Segmenting audiences and sampling opinions was the best even rigorous theorists could do. But in recent years online merchants like Netflix and Amazon demonstrated the value of using copious transaction data to treat every customer differently. Marketers began to understand they could manage reputational risk by monitoring Twitter, Yelp and even YouTube.

Big finance is strangling innovation

Most finance (or economics) undergrads and MBAs have investment banks, hedge funds, management consulting and private equity at the top of their employment priority list – mostly because they typically pay more and carry a relatively high level of prestige. Unfortunately, there are far more students than opportunities available in the most desirable financial fields. The majority of finance students, and many MBAs, have to weigh in on the prospect of working at one of the departments of a company, a commercial bank, insurance company, accounting firm or small consulting shop (i.e., marketing , supply chain , etc.). But just because you can’t land a glamorous finance job – or don’t want to – doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t belong in this major. Read on for some uncommon jobs in finance that you might want to consider.

Uncommon Jobs For Your Finance Degree

It used to be that Wall Street made its money issuing long-term bonds that governments and corporations could then use to invest in Americas productive assets. Sure, there was trading in stocks and bonds, but you didnt get huge increases in wealth funneled to Wall Street as a result. There was some speculation involved, but it was expensive for individuals to trade and such trading wasnt designed to get huge amounts of volume. The commercial banking system was well regulated, and household savings could be channeled to businesses at fairly good rates of return.